Air freshener compositions containing substantial amounts of water, i.e., aqueous air fresheners, are known compositions.
Air freshening compositions may be disseminated into the environment by controlled volatilization of the composition from a reservoir via an emanating source. Any number of emanator designs may be utilized so long as sufficient surface area and pore size is maintained to permit an effective mass transport of the composition to the emanator for volatilization into the environment. In practice, the emanator serves as the metering device or rate determining mechanism step for the evaporation of the disclosed composition. As the composition volatilizes, the low volatile and/or nonvolatile materials collect on the emanator surface. Generally the evaporations rate is significantly affected when the pore volume (pore volume defined as the void area in the emanator surface) decreases below 50%. In some extreme cases, build up of nonvolatile or low volatile materials will actually clog the emanator surface and render the product nonfunctional. Thus, a desirable feature of an aqueous air freshening composition would be the maintenance of a uniform rate of volatilization over the product life.